You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Reading' category.
by Helen Fisher
This book was loaned to me by my therapist. Having read it, I believe there may be something in this book for anyone who has ever been hurt in love. And especially if you’ve been hurt in love by me.
Web of Love: “Lust, Romance, and Attachment”
dopamine, norepinepherine, seratonin!
vassopresin (in men) and oxytocin (in women) produces feelings of attachment, and is produced after sexual orgasm.On Attachment
“Love changes over time. It becomes deeper, calmer. No longer do couples talk all day or dance till dawn. The mad passion, the ecstasy, the longing, the obsessive thinking, the heightened energy: all dissolve. But if you are fortunate, this magic transforms itself into new feelings of security, comfort, calm, and union with your partner.”“I call this complex feeling ‘attachment’.”
“That First Fine Careless Rapture” – Who We Choose
Who Men Choose
“…this study also showed a distinct gender difference in romantic tastes. When it came to sizing up potential romantic partners, men were more likely to choose women who displayed visual signs of youth and beauty.”The Male Brain in Love
“…men tended to show more activity than women in brain regions associated with visual processing, particularly of the face.”“…this brain activity could also help explain why men generally fall in love faster than women. When the time is right and a man sees an attractive woman, he is anatomically equipped to rapidly associate attractive visual features with feelings of romantic passion. What an effective courtship device.”
The Mating Mind
“…these aptitudes, he believes, became more and more complex because the opposite sex liked them and chose to mate with verbal, musical or otherwise talented men and women.”
Why We Love: The evolution of Romantic Love
Evolution of Divorce
Serial monogamy…4 year cycle?!?Capricious Love
“We were built to love and love again. What joy this passion brings when you are single and starting out in life, divorced in middle age, or alone in your senior years. What confusion, what sorrow this chemistry can generate when you are married to someone you admire, then fall in love with someone else.”“Lost Love. Almost everyone on earth knows the agony of rejection. Why do you plummet into despair when you lose somebody you adore?”
Lost Love: Rejection, Despair and Rage
Abandonment Rage
“Even when the parting lover honors his or her responsibilities as a friend (and other co-parent) and leaves the relationship with compassion and honesty, many rejected people swing violently from feelings of heartbreak to utter fury.”“…I have come to think that abandonment rage evolved to serve another purpose: to drive disappointed lovers to extricate themselves from dead-end matches, lick their wounds, and resume their quest for love in greener pastures. Alas, this rage does not necessarily cancel out one’s love, one’s longing, or one’s sexual desire for a departing partner.”
Taking Control of Passion: Making Romance Last
Addicted to Love
“…romantic love is an addictive drug”Love Sickness: Letting Go
“…I think this addiction can be conquered; it just takes determination and time…”“…you must remove all evidence of the addictive substance: the beloved. Throw out cards and letters or stuff them in a box and put it out of reach. Don’t write or call under any circumstances. And depart immediately if you see your former lover in the office or street.”
“Even the briefest contact with ‘him’ or ‘her’ can fire up your brain circuits for romantic ardor. If you wish to recover, you must expunge all traces of the thief who stole your heart.”
Male Intimacy; Female Intimacy
THIS.
John Dewey: “Mind is primarily a verb.”
I’m reading The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and I appreciate what I’m reading on marriage–because the suggestion appears to have little to do with marriage so much as it has to do with maintaining a balance of individuality and togetherness within a relationship. There is everything right about commitment and love, but marriage…changes things and could delineate a shift in focus from the relationship as a fluid, malleable venture to the relationship as a static, structured possession. Why would we want to do this?
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
The clock says something-very-early a.m.
I’m clacking my way northbound, one rhythmic tie at a time, and I still I can’t sleep–too much tea?
An earlier version of myself might have declared that the first three hours of my trip passed “uneventfully”, in effect, communicating that my motorcycle ride from Gainesville to the Sanford Amtrak station ended with myself safely stepping off the bike instead of having fallen off it at some point.
“uneventfully”
I think I am done with that word. no single moment of my life is uneventful. Each intersection of Here and Now is a celebration.
My parents meet me at the station to see me off. “Enjoy your trip” Mom says. I reply, “I’m already enjoying my trip–this is just the next leg.” I’m referring both to my vacation and my life.
Making my way through the station’s processes and finally boarding the train vividly punctuate, by contrast, the paranoia of our airline systems. I motor my teeming motorcycle onto the holding rack with no inspection, and no questions other than “Are you leaving anything on the bike? You’ll have to sign a waiver for that.” Selecting only my backpack to accompany my body into the passenger compartment, I make my way, uninhibited, to the ticket counter, and thereafter directly to the train. At no point have I passed through a metal detector or removed my steel-toes boots. Neither have I placed my belongings on a rubber conveyor for inspection by underpaid-and-correspondingly-apathetic TSA employees.
Once rolling, I settle in for some long-anticipated reading time–our route to Lorton, Virginia will take 17 1/2 hours. My book-hungry eyes feast upon Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, and I whirl around Siddhartha’s discussion on the illusory nature of time. Consuming The Man Who Planted Trees fills me with a few lines that reflect my own ideas about “God”. Reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull tickles me with Jonathan’s extrapolations on Here and Now–a concept I’ve entertained for some time and which I am happily integrating. Richard Bach’s creative perspectives in Jonathan… intrigue me.
As darkness descends around this tube of steel and aluminum, most passengers turn out their lights and roll over onto flat pillows and curl under thin blankets. The train muscles through the night, wobbling here and there, but nothing bothersome.
The East coast sleeps as I lie awake, glancing them briefly as though I’m the one holding still, and they’re the ones rushing by. Their streetlights and porchlights give me only the smallest glimpse as the night moves on, and I lie awake.
by Dan Brown
eidetic – pertaining to a memory or mental image of perfect clarity, as though actually visible; or to a person able to see such memories
pedagogue – a schoolmaster or teacher, esp. a pedantic one
pedant – a person who insists on strict adherence to formal rules or literal meaning at the expense of a wider view (2) a person who rates academic learning or technical knowledge above everything (3) a person who is obsessed by a theory; a doctrinaire
vychyssoise – (vichyssoise?) a thick, creamy soup made from potato, leeks and onions; normally served cold
annular – ring shaped; forming a ring
Well written and smart, but predictable and also a bit implausible for anyone who understands information security better than the author. A fun, casual read.
by Richard Bach
“…overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.”
This is a recurring concept in my life.
There is more than one Son of The Great Gull. This is important.
“perfect speed” – a noble and truthful pursuit
by Jean Giono
“When you remembered that all this had sprung from the hands and the soul of this one man, without technical resources, you understood that men could be as effectual as god in other realms than that of destruction.”
Oh!
by Herman Hesse
Already he knew how to pronounce Om silently–this word of words–to say it inwardly with the intake of breath, when breathing out with all his soul, brow radiating the glow of pure spirit. Already he knew how to recognize Atman within the depth of his being, indestructible, at one with the universe.
I am at a bit of a disadvantage for my shallow understanding of HInduism. For example, many individuals are referred to as “Sons of Brahmin”, and I don’t know what this means, but this article clears things up a bit.
avaricious – (avarice) extreme greed for money or material gain
ablutions – (1) the ceremonial washing of parts of the body or sacred vessels, etc. (2) colloq. – the ordinary washing of the body
Things to look up:
“Was it really Prajpati who had created the world?”
“In truth, the name of Brahman is Satya”
“Some Samana one passed through Siddhartha’s town.”
“the magic of Mara” “the veil of Maya”
vedas, upanishads
ascetics – a person who practices severe self-discipline and abstains from pleasure, esp. for religious or spiritual reasons
pallative – anything used to alleviate pain, anxiety, etc.; serving to alleviate
benediction – the utterance of a blessing; the state of being blessed
ardent – eager; zealous; fervent; passionate
This reminds me of Persig’s discussion in Zen and the Art… of the tendency of science, in an effort to answer a hypothesis, will only create more questions:
“…when every freshly acquired knowledge only engendered a new thirst…”
His “teachers”: home (parents, tradition) -> samnas -> perfect one -> none
expiation – (expiate) pay the penalty (for wrongdoing); make amends for
“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, dissilutionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew.”
“But today he saw one of the river’s secrets, on e that gripped his soul. He saw that the water continually flowed and yet it was always there, it was always the same and yet every moment it was new.”
I’m smile when I read this because not long ago I wrote something containing a similar idea.
Ha ha ha!
Do yo unot compel this arrogant, spoilt boy to live in a hut with two old banana eaters…?”
“…will he not perhaps be quite lost in Samsara?”
“Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.”
“Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have realized this repeatedly. And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.”
Someone please explain to me how time is an illusion!!! I want to see.
Samsara = illusion? = Maya = suffering
Nirvana = truth = Satya = salvation
Prologue: Setting Out, 2001
Lots of profanity: “Asshole Rock”, “flat-ass calm”, “There must be a storm rolling this shit in from way offshore,” Bruce said. It appears (thus far) only in the dialogue. I wonder if this is reflective of the common vernacular among the lobstermen of Little Cranberry Island, Maine?
Commenting about bad weather: “There is just no need,” Bruce said, invoking a phrase he might as well have patented, “of this unnecessary bullshit.” I like the way this is worded–it made me laugh out loud.
gunwale – the upper edge of the side of a boat or ship
I can never remember these. Its fun to have special words:
port – left
starboard – right
stern/aft – rear
fore – front
Bruce turned to Jason and grinned. “I guess that could have been worse.” Jason nodded. “Yup.” Foreshadowing? If so, its a bit obvious…?
Part One: Haul of Heritage
We just went back in time to 1974–Bruce is a young man just out of the navy.
“Poverty crates” full of “bugs” — the old-timer’s reference to the lobster traps and their victims.
fjord – a long narrow inlet of sea between high cliffs
paucity – fewness in number; nearly lacking; dearth
dearth – scarcity which renders dear; want; lack
lee – the side of the ship away from the wind
jib – a triangular sail attached to a stay leading from the masthead or topmast to the stemhead, bowsprit, or jib boom
capstan – a vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum
luffing – to steer a sailing vessel closer into the wind, especially with the sails flapping (I think in this context they just mean to say the sails are flapping)
opprobrium – disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy; Scornful reproach or contempt
flood – the inflow of tide
ebb – the movement of tide out to sea; recede; drain away
gaff – a stick with an iron hook for landing large fish; a spar to which the head of a fore-and-aft sail is beat
appelation – a name or title; nomenclature
scuppers – holes at the edge of a boat’s deck to allow water to run off
cogent – convincing; compelling
tomalley – edible greenish substance in boiled lobster
stoic – not affected by pain or distress
This book is teeming with fascinating information, but I am unenthusiastic at the author’s attempts at humor and metaphor. Regardless of whether its true or not, I don’t need to know that Bob Steneck likens the disappearance of egg-bearing female lobsters to a Star Trek Romulan cloaking device–it just doesn’t fit into the story! A female researcher thinks with relief that girls in college dorms are not like female lobsters in the way they figure out a pecking order for sharing the dominant male–this comparison is a stretch, doesn’t develop the character, and is just a plain distraction.
So, I can’t really recommend this book to anyone. Sorry.
I’ve just finished Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. Koestler, a Hungarian-born Brit, wrote in German, so I can’t be sure if I should credit Koestler for the language, or Daphne Hardy for her digestible translation. In any case, I’m facinated by so many interesting word choices! The best parts (to me) are those excerpts from Rubashov’s prison diary.
Relevant history: The Russian Revolution of 1917 [wikipedia.org]
“A man’s hair and nails continue to grow after his death so movement still occurred in individual cells, muscles and limbs of the dead party”
“NICHOLAS SALAMANOVITCH RUBASHOV”
Cell 404. Such premature pride!
Once imprisoned, we learn of Rubashov’s rusty familiarity with a tapped code of sorts, a way of breaking down the alphabet into coordinates on a grid which can then be tapped out from cell to cell as a means of communication between prisoners. This is described as “…a square of letters with the 25 compartments–five horizontal rows with five letters in each.” However, our English alphabet with 26 characters won’t fit into this grid; furthermore the Russian alphabet, even in its modern condensed form, appears to have 34 characters? So, I am a little confused about this, but not so much as to actually bother me :o)
whorls – a ring of leaves or other organs around a stem of a plant (2) one turn of a spiral, especially on a shell (3) a complete circle in a fingerprint
exculpate – (1) free from blame (2) clear (a person) of a charge
penultimate – next to the last
ague – (1) a malarial fever, with cold, hot, and sweating stages (2) a shivering fit
cogitate – ponder; meditate
“The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I’m lost.”
sacrosanct – (of a person, place, law) most sacred; inviolable
dilletante – n. (1) a person who studies a subject superficially (2) a person who enjoys the arts adj. trifling; not thorough; amateurish
“The maturity of the masses lies in the capacity to recognize their own interests. This, however, pre-supposes a certain understanding of the process of production and distribution of goods. A people’s capacity to govern itself democratically is thus proportionate to the degree of its understanding of the structure and functioning of the whole social body.”
“Now, every technical improvement creates a new complication to the economic apparatus, causes the appearance of new factors and combinations, which the masses cannot penetrate for a time. Every jump of technical progress leaves the relative intellectual development of the masses a step behind, and thus causes a fall in the political-maturity thermometer. It takes sometimes tens of years, sometimes generations, for a people’s level of understanding gradually to adapt itself to the changed state of affairs, until it has recovered the same capacity for self-government as it had already posessed at a lower stage of civilization. Hence the political maturity of the masses cannot be measured by an absolute figure, but only relatively, i.e. in proportion to the stage of civilization at that moment.”
(Perhaps we are right now on the immature end of the thermometer–our society and culture don’t appear to be capable of governing ourselves amongst the “great” advances in information technology and communication achieved within the last 20 years. Is this imbalance the reason I have a career?)
aesthete – a person who has, or professes to have a special appreciation of beauty
“In periods of maturity it is the duty and the function of the opposition to appeal to the masses.”
capitulate – surrender, especially on stated conditions
abberation – (1) departure from what is normal or accepted or regarded as right (2) a moral or mental lapse
There is discussion of a character we come to know as RIP VAN WINKLE because of his absence from society (imprisoned) for a span of 20 years. In Rubashov’s attempt to step into RIP’s mind, he imagines how different the world must appear to him. Notably, Rubashov considers that RIP would not have ever experienced wireless before. This is certainly a reference to radio–then a new, cutting edge technology. But what a sign of the times! A modern reader, especially of the younger generation, might blaze past that word, and without realizing it, apply the modern understanding of wireless–as in a means of delivering ethernet to untethered computers (still the same old radio waves–just at much higher frequencies and obscured through modern cryptographics) whilst sipping their caffienated beverage of choice, in a resonably comfortable chair, on a sunny day, but with a cool breeze wrapped around their shoulders–so far removed from the environment typeset in front of them! (I almost made this mistake myself, under those conditions!)
tête-à-tête – a private conversation between two persons
mis-en-scene – (1) the scenery and properties of a play (2) the settings or surroundings of an environment
rent – a large tear in a garment, etc. (2) an opening in the clouds, etc. (3) a cleft, fissure, or gorge
morass – an entaglement; a disordered situation, especially one impending progress
merriment – (1) exuberant enjoyment; being merry (2) mirth, fun
mirth – merriment, laughter
Ha merriment and mirth seem to define one another! What a shite dictionary.
2-4
He listened again and repeated the same sequence of signs. The wall remained mute. He had never yet consciously tapped the word “I”.
The party had taken all he had to give and never supplied him with the answer. And neither did the silent partner whose magic name he had tapped on the wall of the empty cell.
It was obviously not enough to direct a man’s eyes toward a goal and put a knife in his hand; it was unsuitable for him to experiment with a knife. Perhaps later, one day. For the moment he as still too young and awkward.
No, one cannot build a paradise with concrete.
Perhaps now would come the time of great darkeness. Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arrive–with new flags, a new spirit of both: the economic fatality AND the “oceanic sense”. Perhaps the members of the new party will wear monks’ cowls, and preach that only purity of means can justify the ends. Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is wrong which says that a man is the quotient of one million divided by one million, and will introduce a new kind of arithmetic based on multiplication; on the joining of a million individuals to form a new entity which, no longer an amorphous mass, will develop consciousness and an individuality of its own, with an “oceanic feeling” increased a millionfold, in unlimited yet self-contained space.
Is that consciousness of a million times a million, that larger organism, is already among us, Arthur? Obscured from us, perhaps, by the same mechanism that obscures the silent partner from Rubashov for most of his life?
by Veronica Shoffstall
After a while you learn the subtle
difference
between holding a hand and
sharing a life
and you learn that love doesn’t
mean posession
and company doesn’t mean
security
and loneliness is universal
And you learn that kisses aren’t
contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your
defeats
with your head up and your eyes
open
with the grace of a woman
not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your hope
on today
as the future has a way of falling
apart in mid-flight
because tomorrow’s ground can
be too uncertain for
plans
yet each step taken in a new
direction creates a path
toward the promise of a brighter
dawn.
And you learn that even sunshine
burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and nourish your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to
bring you flowers
And you learn that love, true
love,
always has joys and sorrows
seems ever present, yet is never
quite the same
becoming more than love and
less than love
so difficult to define
And you learn that through it all
you really can endure
that you really are strong
that you do have value
and you learn and grow
with every goodbye
you learn.
